Madonna Fall Down

Marcus Brandt / AFP / Getty

If there's one thing Madonna wants you to know, it's this: She is not a bad horseback rider. Oh, also this: the paparazzi ruin everything. After the Material Woman suffered bruises (of the ego and otherwise) following an untimely fall while riding in the Hamptons on April 18, her publicist was quick to point fingers, saying a photographer had jumped out of the bushes, startled Madonna's horsey and basically nearly killed a pop legend.

But not according to photographer Thomas Hinton, who snapped pictures of the 50-year-old entertainer 10 minutes after the fall. He says there was no second paparazzo on the grassy knoll. "If a photographer startled a horse, I'm thinking we would have seen the pictures by now," he told Newsday.com. TMZ.com ain't buying it either. The celebrity-obsessed website quoted a Southampton Village copper calling the whole story "a matter of spin control that went out of control."